The Return of the Queen
by nothingnothingtralala
Summary: The last thing Jareth had expected to find in his throne room was the girl who had once so ignominiously beat him. That she was drunk was just adding insult to injury... Angst, fluff, crazy chickens. This mini-fic has it all. Complete
1. An Unexpected Visitor

_Hey everyone! Because I'm a terrible author and didn't update GSUV for ages, have a nice three-shot. This is property of **Comical Freaka**, who had the honour of being my thousandth reviewer :P _

_I'd love to hear your comments, because this is only my second fic written from Jareth's point of view, and I'm not sure whether I'm happy with it or not. I'll definitely be writing more from his side, I think..._

* * *

Even Goblin Kings have bad days; and Jareth, prone as he was to mercurial changes of temper, had days that were worse that most. What it was that he did whilst closeted in his study for hours on end the goblins were not quite sure, but they all knew that when he appeared with a face like thunder and a rather larger amount of shoulder spikes on his armour than usual it was time to _run_.

Today had been particularly bad, and when he slammed the heavy door behind him the two goblins in the corridor squeaked in horror and disappeared in a shower of dirty chicken feathers. Jareth watched them go with narrowed eyes. He was torn between a dark satisfaction in their evident fear of him, and irritation that they hadn't stuck around to let him take his anger and frustration out on him. Irritation won, and he stalked murderously through the castle, attended by shadows far darker and thicker and more menacing than any real shadows had a right to be.

Things had not been going well for the King of the Goblins. For a start, there had been that debacle with _Her_ — but he brought his thoughts up short well before they could even veer in that dangerous direction. It was forbidden (on pain of Bogging or, depending on the severity of the offence, Immediate and Horribly Painful Death) to discuss, mention or even _think about_ That Day and its unhappy events; but it could not be denied that much of the unrest in the Goblin Kingdom stemmed from the ignominious defeat Jareth had suffered at the hands of —

He reigned in his thoughts once more, with such force that a nearby window shattered. He ought to be over it by now; it had been long enough — and besides, there were plenty of other things to be worried about. The Labyrinth was not well. There was an unrest, an emptiness at its heart that Jareth had been striving to pinpoint for months now, and that was on top of the mountains of paperwork that were necessitated by his elevated position at the Fae court. Then there was the strange lack of Wishers. Challenging Runners and claiming the Wished-Away was a strenuous job, but it was usually rewarding and it worried him that no one had called on him, that there hadn't been even the slightest whisper of The Words, ever since…

Scowling, he summoned a wine glass for the sole purpose of kicking it and hearing it smash against the wall in a shower of broken splinters. It was at this point that he realised, somewhat to his mystification, that the corridors were completely deserted. Usually there was at least a scattering of his subjects busily engaged in their latest mischief, drinking contests or some such nonsense; but the corridors were empty and silent, only a stray chicken quietly clucking to itself and some puddles of spilt ale signifying that the castle was inhabited at all. Jareth's bewilderment, and annoyance, grew as he neared the throne room and began to hear the unearthly noises issuing from it. An expression darkened his face that boded very ill for the hapless goblins causing whatever havoc it was this time.

About to fling open the double doors (they had in fact been installed for this purpose and none other), Jareth paused; perhaps it would be better to ensure his entrance did not fall flat. There was, in his practised opinion, nothing worse than bursting into a room unnoticed. To this end, he took a few unhurried moments to adjust his cloak (adding a definite quantity of Dramatic Flare by the simple expedient of lengthening it by a few inches) and polish his armour on his sleeve: when he was satisfied, he fluffed up his unruly hair, straightened his shoulders, cracked his knuckles, and pushed the doors open with a deafening _boom_.

"WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU THINK YOU'RE—"

He was in the process of roaring authoritatively yet with dignity (a tricky balance he'd perfected over the past few centuries) when the scene before his eyes sank in, and dignity and authority flew out the window and disappeared; "doing" came out in almost a whimper. Never in his life had the Goblin King experienced such a tumult of astonishment, fury, outrage, and pure shock; it rendered him utterly speechless for far longer than the average goblin mess did. He simply could not believe his eyes.

The throne room was in utter disarray. This might not have been so significant if its usual state had not been approximate to a reasonably clean pigsty; as it was, it looked rather as though some sort of explosion had taken place. There were suspicious stains on the ceiling, a haze of feathers in the air, and cushions scattered about haphazardly with no discernible pattern or purpose. On the wall opposite Jareth's throne, an enormous target had been (badly) painted onto the stone in what seemed to be red paint; the various circles were labeled "ten points", "for pointz", "eleventeen points" and "hundrid". Beneath this makeshift target was an assortment of objects, ranging from metal plates and smashed eggs to slightly dazed goblins crawling aside to avoid bombardment.

And at the other end, sitting — no, _lounging _— on _his_ throne, in the process of loading the enormous catapult that stretched across the room with a strangely placid chicken, acting as though his imperative entrance hadn't even happened, was _Sarah Williams_.

Sarah, Champion of the Labyrinth. Sarah, the girl who had broken his heart and all but danced on the pieces; whose very name was treason to speak in the Underground (or at least within earshot of the King); who had caused havoc in the Labyrinth and among its inhabitants that was only now beginning to heal. Sarah, the only girl he'd ever bared his soul to, who was at this very moment ignoring his presence with a casual nonchalance that a part of him applauded even while his hackles rose.

She pulled the catapult — it seemed to be primarily constructed of a metal shield and some fifty socks — back as far as it could stretch, then let it go; Jareth watched in a kind of frozen horror as the chicken sailed gracefully through the air and, with a dull thud, landed bang in the centre of the target before slithering to the ground in a flurry of feathers. The goblins, intimidated beneath the appalled gaze of their monarch, let loose a ragged cheer that trailed off into an embarrassed silence.

Then, and only then, did Sarah turn her head and say, sweetly: "Oh, Jareth, I didn't see you there. How lovely to see you again."


	2. Confrontation

There followed a short period of tranquillity while Jareth, apoplectic with rage, attempted to regain the power of speech. _How dare she_? How dare she appear out of the blue, after all this time, without so much as a "sorry I nearly destroyed your kingdom", and wreak _disaster_ in his throne room? More to the point, how dare she sit in his throne as though she belonged there? She most certainly did not, regardless of how elegant her relaxed pose was and how flattering it was to that pair of long, curvaceous legs. Dim visions of a second throne, perhaps with a little more feminine decoration, alongside the first, were swiftly thrust away.

"What," he began, allowing the word to simmer with suppressed rage in a way that he had found particularly successful in past dealings with prisoners of war, etc, "are you doing here?"

Sarah tipped her head to the side in an exaggerated gesture, and raised a finger to her lips, pretending to think. "Why, Goblin King, you raise an excellent point. And the answer is: beating your goblins at the catapult. Surely that much is apparent?"

Something in the way she spoke and the languid movements of her hands alerted Jareth to a fact he'd previously failed to notice. Striding to the throne, only slightly hampered by the multitudes of apologetic goblins, he grasped her by the upper arm and bodily pulled her out of the throne. Sarah giggled and swayed into him.

"Champion," he said icily, the use of her official title — had she but known him better — indicating quite how great his displeasure was, "are you intoxicated?"

"Ah — now there's an even better question," she said gaily. "And if you mean am I _drunk_, then the answer is categrorick — cator — certainly yes."

Jareth glared down at her, and his brain chose this precise moment to point out quite how beautiful his Champion had become. Exactly how many mortal years it had been since their last encounter, he couldn't be sure — one tended to lose track of time when one had so much of it — but it had evidently been enough for the child to grow up. Even with her dark hair tousled, her cheeks hectically flushed, and her green eyes slightly unfocused, she was delectable: and, he noted with a gulp, those long, curvaceous legs were attached to a slim, curvaceous body that had certainly improved since his last glimpse of it.

Snapping his attention back to the present, _for now of all times is not the moment to lose your head, you idiot_, he rearranged his features back into a suitable degree of sternness, and asked the obvious question. "Why are you, of all people, drunk in my throne room?"

"What, haven't you missed me?" she said slyly, looking up at him through sooty eyelashes in a way that did terrible and unexpected things to his insides. _Get a hold of yourself, Jareth, she's not even in a sane state of mind. _

_Also, you hate her. Remember?_

"That is quite beside the point," he said stiffly. "Why have you chosen to grace us with your presence, Sarah?" He attempted to imbue her name with layers of cool disdain, but couldn't help lingering a little over the familiar syllables. Her name had been a curse for so long that now he'd finally spoken it aloud it was as though a spell had been broken.

Sarah extricated herself from his grasp and made several unsteady steps along the dais, clearly enjoying herself as she wobbled precariously over the edge. For a moment he thought she wasn't going to answer him; but then she began to speak, rather loudly, and without making eye contact.

"I mean, you know, I kind of thought you were going to come back," she said.

Jareth was intrigued. "I beg your pardon?"

"Like, yeah," she continued, still refusing to look at him. "You said all that stuff about love and being my slave, and stuff." Apparently her vocabulary was less than stellar when she had been drinking. "But then, well, you disappeared and you never tried to get me back."

An intense mixture of emotions flooded Jareth, so intertwined that he couldn't quite tell any of them apart. There was a rather ridiculous amount of hope in there, mixed with large quantities of anger and, surprisingly, sympathy.

"I couldn't," he said shortly. Sarah wheeled round, her eyes wide and her cheeks flushing redder still.

"What?" she said sharply.

Jareth spoke uncomfortably, aware that he was revealing secrets he probably shouldn't and that it was likely he would regret doing so. "You revoked any and all power I had over you. I couldn't see, speak to or go near you." He gritted his teeth. It had been a particularly humiliating part of Sarah's defeat of him that he'd been unable to even glimpse her in a crystal or send her the odd vengeful dream. That she had been so entirely unaware of it primarily angered him more. Her innocence did not excuse the destruction she had caused, not to speak of the pain.

"Oh," said the Champion, and she had the grace to look ashamed. "I didn't know."

"Clearly." There was another short silence. Jareth steeled himself. Best to get this over with. "Well, shall I send you home then?"

Her head jerked up, and she regarded him with confusion. "Home?" she faltered.

"Yes. I shall send you back there, and even throw a sobering charm into the mix. How does that sound?" He forced himself to sound strictly business-like. Her brief foray back into his life meant nothing — nothing at all. (_Nothing, nothing, tra la la…)_

Sarah opened her mouth as if to speak, but instead went deathly pale. Instinctively, Jareth leapt towards her, catching her elbow as her knees wobbled.

"Sarah…?" Panic flooded him. "What is wrong?"

"I don't feel so great," she whispered, and then her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed.

Deftly, as though he'd been in the habit of catching fainting damsels all his life, Jareth caught her and lifted her slight weight into his arms. _Now what?_ he thought, at a loss. Of course, he could just send her home. He probably _should_ send her home. But…

The goblins crowded round anxiously, patting whichever bits of her anatomy they could reach and asking so many questions he could barely make them out. "Chikkin lady dead?" and "No more catterpolt?" appeared to be the most pressing ones. It was this that decided him: the last thing Sarah needed was to be suffocated by well-meaning goblins. With a thought, he transported them both to his chambers, and laid Sarah gently onto the bed.

With his fiery Champion unconscious, he now had a chance to examine her, and this he proceeded to shamelessly do — once he had ascertained via magical means that her sleep was merely an intoxicated slumber and not something more serious. Resisting heroically the ungentlemanly urge to explore more than was proper, he changed her clothes with a gesture, robing her in one of his own favourite shirts, soft and comfortable, and carefully draped the sheets over her before turning his attention to the analysis of her features.

Sarah's dark hair had grown to her waist, and it surrounded her in a tangled, protective curtain; he smoothed it back, gently, to look at her face. Older, now, and more experienced, though there was still a tantalising innocence — particularly in sleep — in the soft curve of her cheek and the velvety, rosebud mouth. Her freckles had dwindled, leaving her with a beautifully clear complexion, and the thick fringe of her lashes on the rosy cheeks made a pleasing contrast. Kicking off his boots, Jareth propped himself up on one elbow to contemplate her: his enemy, his vanquisher, his challenger. She had put herself totally and utterly into his power tonight — whether on purpose or not, he did not know. By coming back, she had revoked her clause, and now it was as though those hateful and bitter words had not even been spoken. Now, at last, it was possible to enact his revenge, to make her pay for the terrible suffering she had caused him. Yet the moment it occurred to him, he almost laughed at the ridiculousness of the notion. He could no more harm her than he could rip out his own beating heart.

He watched the soothing rise and fall of her chest and listened to her quiet breathing for far longer than he intended to. Before he knew it, his eyes were growing heavy, and then somehow he was asleep.


	3. Awakening

Jareth woke like a cat, neatly, and completely aware from the moment he opened his eyes. He was lying on his front, sprawled inelegantly across the bed, and in sleep he had flung one arm over Sarah. Somewhat to his surprise, she had at some point during the night rolled over towards him, cuddling into his warmth. He felt an odd hitch in his chest when he realised it, and carefully moved away without disturbing her.

Gods, but the woman was beautiful…

In the pale morning sunlight that flooded through the gossamer curtains, he could see with even more clarity than last night. The loose shirt had slipped, revealing one white and perfect shoulder, and the red lips were slightly parted. There was a freckle at the very tip of her nose, and a tiny scar on her forehead. He fought the absurd urge to kiss it.

With a sigh, he got up and walked over to the window, absent-mindedly robing himself in clean clothes as he did so. Gesturing for the windows to open, he passed out onto the balcony and leaned on the railing, letting the cool morning breeze ruffle his hair and drinking in the beauty of a summer morning in the Labyrinth. He felt oddly heavy-hearted, though he could not say why. As soon as Sarah awoke, he would return her, as was the honourable thing to do. She would continue to live her life — whatever it was — as before, and he could get on with the business of being Goblin King and forgetting her. There was no reason to think otherwise.

He was musing on how she had managed to get to the Underground, when he realised something — something he should have realised before, had he not been so distracted. The pressure in his heart that had been a part of him for so long now, the aching emptiness that had been at the centre of the Labyrinth and gradually weakening it from the inside out, had vanished.

Jareth stood upright, electrified. _What…? Am I imagining things?_ He made a quick mental exploration of his kingdom, but no, he was not. The Labyrinth was healed. Even now he could feel the difference: plants that had been withering were growing taller than ever; the grass was green; the fairies were chirping happily in the flowers once more. Overnight, it was as if a miracle had happened.

_Sarah_.

He looked back at her, still asleep, and ludicrous, irrational, foolish joy filled him. _Sarah!_ She had done this for him, had given him this gift. It was quite clear to him, in this moment of exultation, that she could not go home now; could not go home ever, for she was the answer to the riddle. The Labyrinth needed her to survive. He would go now, and wake her, and tell her the good news —

The thought struck him even as he moved towards the bed, and it was though a light had been violently struck out. He could not do this. He could not keep her prisoner, though she was his salvation and the Queen of the Labyrinth: it was not his choice to make. Better to let her return to the life where she belonged than to pluck her ruthlessly and rid her of her freedom and innocence.

He had thought, before, that he had known what pain was; but in this instant he realised he had not. Now it filled him, exquisite torture, from head to toe, and he did not even know why.

Sarah stirred, and woke.

* * *

She blinked, several times, evidently trying to work out where she was, and then tried to sit up too suddenly: with a groan, she clutched her head.

"Does it hurt?" Jareth asked, suddenly worried, and annoyed that he was worried; the sound of his voice made her jump, and her eyes focused on him.

"Ja… Goblin King?" She looked adorably confused, one cheek redder than the other where she had lain on it. A swell of possessiveness rolled through him: it was as though the Labyrinth pointed at her and said, firmly, _mine_.

_No, mine,_ he thought back.

"Yes." He came forward and sat on the bed; she watched him warily. "Do you remember why you are here?"

Brow furrowed, she searched for clarity. "No… yes? I remember the goblins, and the — the —" She hesitated.

"Catapult," he supplied seriously, and she flushed.

"Uh, yes. I — I'm sorry. I guess I — where am I now?" As though her surroundings had only just sunk in, her eyes widened, and she pushed aside the sheets and got to her feet with quick, jerky movements. "Am I — is this — oh God, Jareth, did we —?"

He wanted to answer her, to put her right, but _by all that glitters _she was standing, and the shirt only came halfway down her thighs, and it was translucent enough that he could get a tantalising glimpse of shadows and skin beneath it… They were caught in a strange uncertainty between stranger and lover, with so little spoken between them and yet that most intimate position of having shared a bed, a _night, _the joint vulnerability of sleep. He wanted to know her, to explore the curves and hollows of her, to learn her by heart.

"Jareth." There was a definite note of panic in her voice now. "Tell me, please, what happened last night?"

He forced himself to concentrate. "Well, I walked in on you apparently winning the chicken toss by a significant margin," he said lightly. "Then you exchanged a few… pleasantries with me, and passed out."

"Ohh…" she groaned again in mortification, collapsing back onto the bed with her back to him and burying her face in her hands. He could see the delicate outline of her spine through the shirt, and he had to stop himself from running a finger down it to make goosebumps appear on her skin.

"I assure you, nothing else happened," he heard himself saying. "I thought it was best to let you rest; transportation spells can be… unpleasant, and I didn't want to risk your health."

"Mm." She still didn't turn round. What would she do if he just touched his lips to the nape of her neck? "Yes, my journey here wasn't great either."

"How _did_ you get here?" He was distracted enough by the question that he momentarily stopped ogling her; it had been nagging at him.

"Wished for the goblins to take me." Yes, of course, for though his power over her had been revoked, her own power remained intact…

"Then — _why_?" Why would she come back? To gloat at her vanquished enemy? Surely not.

She laughed. He was so astonished that he just sat there frozen; it was a real laugh, warm and endearing, and he had never wanted to kiss anyone so badly in his entire centuries of life. Sarah turned round, swinging her legs up onto the bed, and grinned at him. Her whole face lit up when she smiled.

"You really want to know?" she asked, half amusedly, half wryly.

"Yes." The word escaped his lips with more desperation than he had intended.

She twisted her lips in an enchanting pout. "See, the thing is, I… well, yesterday was my birthday."

He tipped his head to the side, waiting.

"And… I had a party. With all my friends. It was great. Music, food, drink, everyone was having a great time." He could just picture it; the way she would laugh with them, talk with them. In her world. Belonging. "But I was really quiet, and people kept asking me why." Oh. That was unexpected. He'd barely known this new woman-Sarah for five minutes, but she already seemed like someone unlikely to be quiet. "I tried to brush it off, but when everyone had left, I… I began to cry."

Jareth swallowed. Had someone hurt her? Did she have a human lover who had perhaps offended her? He would choke the life out of him —

"So, yeah, I'm sitting there in the middle of this room filled with gifts and food and stuff, and I'm crying my eyes out, and as I'm crying I _realise_ something —" Sarah laughed again, but there was an edge of bitterness to it this time. "I realise that I fucking miss _you_."

He remained very still. There was a strange pricking sensation all over his skin.

"Like, how screwed up is that? I'm twenty three years old, I have the best life a girl could want, I've got friends and a job and a flat that doesn't have damp problems, and I miss the villain of my own whacked-out adventure story? And that's when it really hit home. I didn't… I wasn't… Oh, I don't know!" She waved an arm, frustratedly. "I just knew that I wasn't _complete_, I wasn't me, without you. I'd known it for a while, if I'm honest. I was waiting for you for a long time. But you never showed, and…"

Could it be that sometimes, the gods granted the prayers of the faeries?

"…Well, anyway, I drank most of a bottle of wine, and at that point it suddenly seemed like a _really_ good idea to wish myself away to you. So I decided to pay a visit."

There was a moment of taut silence, then she opened her lips to say more, but to Jareth it was perfectly natural to pull her towards him and kiss her sweet mouth and her eyes and her neck and the smooth, warm skin of her temple, and she was kissing him back, and there were simply no words for the joy in his heart; the whole world held its breath as he let it take him under and drowned in the wonder of her love.

When he came back to himself, she was curled in his arms, and he was lazily tracing patterns on her collarbone. His whole body was humming with contentment. _My Champion has come back to me. The Labyrinth has its Queen again. _

"Please don't send me home," she whispered, and he smiled, and pressed a kiss against her white shoulder.

"You _are_ home," he said.

* * *

_Love and glitter as ever, and reviews are always greatly appreciated (and occasionally copied out and framed). _


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